Newsbriefs
Border Patrol Sued for Targeting Latinos SAN FRANCISCO-On January 12, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled two to one that a case alleging civil liberties violations by the U.S. Border...
...The Hispanic community cannot drive between Nogales, Tucson and Phoenix without a good chance they will be stopped by a Border Patrol agent," said Salese, "simply because they look like Mexicans...
...At first, they said they were there to register a complaint for a group of displaced people, then they said they represented a militia," said Ignacio Arango, who works in the IPC's human rights office and witnessed the attack...
...Observers also point out that two other neighboring countries, Ecuador and Panama, have been taking steps to strengthen their military presence, and Venezuela is keeping thousands of troops on the Colombian border...
...Tamayo and Rodas were released on February 8. Ten days later, Bedoya and Salazar were also freed...
...The four were then forcibly taken from the office along with two portable computers and the identity cards of nine others present...
...For example, the Garifuna charge that Honduran businessman Miguel Facusse, who heads the Great Project of National Transformation, is one of the biggest buyers of their lands...
...The response of successive governments has been woefully inadequate...
...Congress...
...The draft legislation increases the penalties against employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants, proposing fines up to $500,000 for transgressors...
...Such documents encourage those who have overstayed their permit to resort to desperate means to collect the money, or to abandon the attempt and go underground...
...And now that Washington successfully cajoled Lima into settling its territorial differences with Ecuador, Peru has troops available...
...In his letter, Castafio claimed that the IPC employees were "three parasubversives and a guerrilla...
...Arms and drug traffickers also operate freely along the border...
...Weekly News Update on the Americas Guatemala on Trial For Torture, Assassination of Children SAN JOSE-In a small, packed courtroom, seven judges from the Inter-American Human Rights Court began to hear testimony about a case in which the Guatemalan Continued on page 48 government is accused of torturing and murdering five street children...
...Sam Gejdensen (D-CT), chair and ranking Democratic member respectively of the powerful International Relations Committee, signed three separate letters to President Andr6s Pastrana calling for the hostages' release and action against paramilitaries...
...District Court...
...Last year alone, five defenders were murdered...
...In 1997, the toll was over a dozen...
...District Judge John M. Roll in Tucson, who had thrown the case out in response to a summary judgment motion by the government...
...The problem remains who supports these actions and who tolerates them...
...Castafio remained at large...
...Food supplies were also slow in arriving because of transportation problems...
...Eduardo Pizarro, of the National University in Bogota, said the Peruvian President was acting as a stalking horse for an alleged U.S...
...Pinochet Awaits Verdict In Style LONDON-On February 4, Britain's highest court, the House of Lords, ended a second hearing on whether former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet should be granted immunity from a Spanish extradition request...
...Robin Kirk QUITO, ECUADOR-Ecuadorian leg- islative deputy Jaime Hurtado Gonzilez, a leader of the leftist Democratic Popular Movement (MPD) and known as "the Champion of the Poor," was shot and killed along with an alternate MPD deputy and Hurtado's nephew in broad daylight in downtown Quito on February 17...
...Two similar multimillion-dollar lawsuits have been filed against the city of Chandler, Arizona, in connection with an immigration enforcement operation carried out jointly by Chandler police and U.S...
...On January 21, Menem said that any illegal immigrants captured by the police would be expelled...
...The four men and one woman selected out Jairo Bedoya, the director of the IPC...
...As a result, the new law threatens loss of Garifuna lands still held under titles of occupation...
...In what is now being referred to as a two-legged Mitch, the Honduran Congress approved the constitutional reform on November 30, 1998 in a late-night session...
...32, No...
...The barrage prompted an unusual reaction from Castafio: a letter to international human rights groups promising to release at least two of the hostages, copied to the U.S...
...It is the first time the 18-year-old body agreed to hear a case involving children's rights...
...antidrug agents on board had violated Colombian airspace was quickly denied by both countries...
...It should be October 25, 1998...
...Sociologist Enrique Oteiza estimates the true number of illegal immigrants at around 200,000 out of a total population of some 33 million...
...Roll had claimed that the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring the case and concluded that the litigation would be unmanageable because of a "potentially staggering" number of witnesses...
...The Supreme Court later upheld the lower court's decision, prompting Casa Alianza to bring the case before the Inter-American Court...
...Latin American Weekly Report, InterPress Service...
...The court's new decision is not expected to be announced until mid-March...
...An estimated 400,000 Garifunas currently inhabit 53 villages along the Honduran Caribbean coast, an area hit very hard last fall by Hurricane Mitch...
...A November 25 ruling against Pinochet was set aside on December 17, the first time a ruling by the Law Lords has ever been reversed...
...Claudia Tamayo, planning and development coordinator...
...The Ecuadorian interior minister alleged that the shootings were carried out by Colombian hired guns linked to death squads in reprisal for Hurtado's alleged support for Colombian guerril- las, though many MPD supporters sus- pect the assassins may have come from closer to home...
...According to a report released by city officials late last year, police agents were inadequately prepared and poorly supervised when they unlawfully stopped and interrogated U.S.born Hispanics and legal immigrants during the five-day sweep...
...The case is significant because police violence against children is shockingly common in Guatemala...
...Peruvian columnist Mirko Lauer, of the Lima daily La Reptiblica, said Fujimori was trying to export his nonegotiationswith-terrorists policy by stressing the regional dimensions of the Colombian conflict...
...4] misstated the date a treaty was signed between the two countries ending the conflict...
...Jorge Rafael Videla, retired admirals Emilio Eduardo Massera, Rub6n Franco, Jos6 Suppicich and Antonio Vahiek have also been confined to their homes on similar charges...
...Border Patrol in highway stops can go forward as a class action...
...Otherwise, the rising value of potential tourism lands will increase rapacious land buying by powerful politicians and military officers...
...Chile's torture victims were unarmed civilians...
...In either case, they attract police attention...
...The new ruling reversed a June 1997 decision by U.S...
...Mary Castro's article, "The Growth of WorkingClass Feminism in Brazil" in the same issue, neglected to mention two sources: Lena Lavinas and Hildete Pereira de Melo, "Mulheres Sem Medo do Poder" (Brasilia: IPEA, 1996...
...You can install as many panes of bulletproof glass and video surveillance cameras in these offices as you can and human rights defenders would still be in danger," one activist told me after the recent kidnappings and killings...
...Only after Castafio's letter hit the media, Colombia's Interior Minister finally signed the documents necessary to begin the installation of security measures in the offices of nine threatened human rights groups and six trade unions...
...After hired guns under Castafio's command killed Vol~~~~~~~_ MXIN ACHARL19 Vol XXXII, No 5 MARCH/APRIL 1999 INEWSBRIEFS Mario Calder6n and Elsa Alvarado, who worked for the Popular Research and Education Center (CINEP), and Elsa's father, Carlos, in their Bogotd apartment on May 19, 1997, the government announced that it would aggressively pursue paramilitaries, break the continuing ties between the military and paramilitaries, and provide security for threatened human rights groups...
...Among them were the directors of four other human rights groups, attending a regular interinstitutional meeting...
...The National Agrarian Institute began issuing titles to Garifuna lands in 1993, but the land titling process came to a halt last year...
...Jorge "El Tigre" Acosta and ESMA prefect H6ctor Febres--are actually in police custody...
...The Garifuna have demanded an alternative joint-venture approach to tourist-sector investment, in which land would be leased in return for a percentage of tourism profits...
...Shortly thereafter, Fujimori ordered the transfer of at least 600 soldiers to the 994-mile Amazon frontier between Peru and Colombia...
...The plaintiffs, he said, are attempting to compel the Border Patrol, the uniformed arm of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, to change its policies on making random highway stops in an eight-county area of Arizona...
...plan to "internationalize" the Colombian domestic conflict and justify outside military intervention against guerrillas Continued on page 4 and drug-traffickers...
...The Colombian establishment, after initially protesting Fujimori's perceived interference in its domestic affairs, clearly decided there was nothing to gain from a confrontation with a neighbor whose goodwill is vital in many areas...
...Ben Gilman (R-NY) and Rep...
...I had a photo and I said to people, 'have you seen this boy?' One person finally told me she had seen him being taken away by the police with a group of other boys...
...Carlos Castafio heads the United Self-Defense Units of Colombia (AUC), which has as many as 5,000 fighters and controls much of northern Colombia...
...While the Garifuna death toll was relatively low, 15,000 people were displaced, 600 homes were destroyed, another thousand were damaged and 90% of Garifuna crops and livestock were lost...
...The five children, Anstraum Villagran, Henry Giovani Contreras, Federico Figueroa, Julio Roberto Caal and Jovito Josu& Judrez, were tortured and killed on June 15, 1990 allegedly by two police officers...
...Weekly News Update on the Americas Argentina: Taking Aim at Illegal Immigrants BUENOS AIRES--Human rights groups and Jewish and Catholic leaders criticized attempts by the Argentine government to blame the country's recent crime wave on illegal immigrants...
...Guatemala, which signed the treaty in 1987, could be found responsible for the torture and death of the children and for violating due process...
...The Peruvian government claims that there have been a number of such incursions since 1993...
...Three days later, Colombia's most infamous paramilitary leader claimed responsibility for the kidnappings...
...Rodrigo Pardo, former foreign minister and now editor of El Espectador, agreed, saying Fujimori's remarks amounted to an invitation to outsiders to intervene in Colombia...
...His lawyers' request that he be placed under house arrest instead, given that he is over the age of 70, was accepted...
...In Medellin the following Saturday, two human rights workers, Everardo De Jesds Puerta and Julio Ernesto Gonzilez of the Committee to Support Political Prisoners, were hauled off a BogotA-bound bus during a midnight roadblock and summarily shot...
...In the United States, 15 members of Congress, including Rep...
...Senator Fabio Valencia, president of the Colombian Congress, argued that Fujimori was looking for a foreign scapegoat to distract Peruvians' attention from the internal problems that have recently undermined his popularity...
...The Buenos Aires police took the President's speech as a cue to launch a series of highly publicized raids on haunts of suspected illegal immigrants in the city...
...Setting The Stage For Intervention in Colombia...
...However, government critics point out that the fields in which immigrant workers find employment, such as domestic service, garment-making and construction, are usually shunned by Argentine workers...
...military aid to Colombia's army, which has yet to take real action against paramilitaries...
...This organization, which recently received $55 million in World Bank financing, has become the de facto government development agency in Honduras...
...Immigration News Briefs Colombian Human Rights Defenders Killed, Kidnapped BOGOTA-January 28 was a typical sunny afternoon in the city of Medellin when two Chevrolet Luv pickup trucks stopped at the offices of the Popular Training Institute (IPC), a well-known human rights group that works in the surrounding department of Antioquia...
...The move violated a previous government agreement reached on July 22, 1998 between Congress and black and Miskito groups to put off reform until a consensus had been reached...
...Former army chief Gen...
...Latin American Weekly Update Errata "Perils of Nationalism: The Peru-Ecuador Conflict" by Nelson Manrique [Vol...
...The judges have begun hearing testimony from several witnesses, including the relatives of the murdered youths...
...This case will set an historic precedent, demonstrating that children are also the victims of barbaric acts by state agents," said Bruce Harris, Executive Director of the child-advocacy group, Casa Alianza, and one of the co-petitioners in the case along with the Center for Justice and International Law (Cejil...
...Cristino Nicolaides was arrested on January 13 after twice faking illness to avoid appearing before Bagnasco, and was also put under house arrest after his interrogation...
...The reinforcement of garrisons along the frontier, particularly on the Putumayo river, is ostensibly designed to stop incursions into Peruvian territory by guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Army of National Liberation (ELN...
...The second hearing, which opened on January 18, included arguments from the British government, the Chilean government and Pinochet's attorneys...
...Argentina has also introduced a series of complicated procedures for extending the 15-90 day tourist visas with which most immigrants arrive...
...There are no indications that the continued killing and kidnapping of human rights defenders will prompt a cut-off of U.S...
...All had been shot through the back of the head...
...Inside, about 25 people were working...
...Jorge Salazar, human rights investigator...
...Ronald J. Morgan Ninth Arrest For Baby Kidnappings In Argentina BUENOS AIRES -Continuing the wave of arrests in cases related to Argentina's dirty war against leftists, on January 20 federal judge Adolfo Bagnasco ordered the arrest of Reynaldo Benito Bignone, the last president under the country's 1976-1983 military dictatorship...
...Border Patrol agents from July 27 to 31, 1997...
...The news was about to get worse...
...and Olga Rodas, office manager...
...Two fortified doors were installed at the offices of two human rights groups...
...Suspicious-minded observers noted that U.S...
...Meanwhile, congressional representatives of the opposition Alianza pledged their political support against the "persecution" and "humiliating treatment" of immigrants by the Menem government...
...These include fees of up to $500 for various papers and stamps, evidence of a permanent job, a health certificate and a document showing a clean police record...
...The attacks continued...
...Bignone signed the September 1983 "selfamnesty" absolving the military of all responsibility for crimes committed during the dictatorship, which was nullified shortly after President Rafil Alfonsin took power in December 1983...
...The mother of one of the boys described how her son had left home one day and failed to return...
...They pulled out their guns and began forcing everyone to gather on the second floor and lie face down...
...Casa Alianza brought the case before the Guatemalan courts, but the officers were found not guilty...
...But commentators in both Colombia and Peru suspect ulterior motives behind Fujimori's sudden preoccupation with the Colombian border...
...It was then that they said they were there to stop the spread of Communism within the IPC...
...The Financial Times notes that with Pinochet are "his wife, chauffeur, aide-de-camp, butler and cook, his personal staff, exercise equipment, video and a library of books funded by the Chilean army...
...Between 1990 and 1998, 392 cases involving accusations of violating the rights of children were brought before the Guatemalan courts...
...Bignone is accused of involvement in the kidnapping of children born to women who were disappeared by the military regime...
...The reform, part of the government's plan to have private investors rebuild the country, opens the way for substantial foreign ownership along the Honduran border and coastline...
...And that has yet to be touched...
...In mid-January, as the Argentine Congress announced plans to draft a bill severely tightening controls on illegal immigration, President Menem stated that undocumented migrants from Paraguay, Bolivia, Chile and Peru were responsible for both rising street crime and the inability of an increasing number of Argentines to find work...
...advisers have been deeply involved recently in beefing up Peruvian river patrols in the Amazon to interrupt the flow of drugs and precursor chemicals between Peru and Colombia...
...Of the nine officers arrested so far in the case, only two-Navy Mechanics School (ESMA) intelligence chief Capt...
...LIMA AND BOGOTA-During a visit to Washington on January 4-5 to obtain funding for the integration and development of the Peru-Ecuador border, Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori severely criticized the Colombian government's strategy of negotiating with left-wing guerrillas...
...Their eyes had been burned out and their ears and tongues severed...
...Pinochet attorney Clare Montgomery astonished observers by arging that the torture of Chilean civilians by Pinochet's government could not be construed as a crime against humanity because such crimes may be "committed against armed populations which are fighting either in a war or in an internal conflict...
...The judges will have to decide whether the Guatemalan government violated the American Convention, the human rights treaty which each member of the Organization of American States has to affirm as a condition of membership...
...The letter hit human rights groups like an ice storm, though many rights activists said they would not give up their work...
...The lawsuit, filed by motorists Panchita Hodgers Durgin and Antonio Lopez, charges that Border Patrol agents have systematically engaged in the practice of stopping motorists of Latino appearance without reasonable suspicion of a crime on the highways of southern Arizona...
...The authors of 220 of those cases were identified as members of the security forces, according to Casa Alianza...
...Authorities estimate that there are up to one million foreign undocumented workers in Argentina, but critics claim this is a gross exaggeration reflecting a deep-seated prejudice against people from Argentina's neighboring countries, all of which have a larger indigenous and mestizo population...
...Bignone testified before Bagnasco for over three hours, and was then ordered to a National Police prison...
...Armand Salese, the Tucson attorney who represents the motorists, said the case was based on witness statements and government records, including Border Patrol reports and telephone logs...
...The rent is $16,380 a month...
...The immigrants have begun to organize, extracting a promise from Corach on January 26 allowing them to participate in discussions on the proposed legislation...
...And the military continues to tolerate and even support paramilitaries...
...Human rights groups were similarly "infested," he wrote, introducing a "lamentable, but inevitable stage in the conflict...
...The result...
...Days later Interior Minister Carlos Corach quoted federal police figures asserting that illegal immigrants account for 77% of all those arrested for petty crimes in Buenos Aires...
...and Lena Lavinas, "Caracteristicas da Ocupa;go Femenina nos Anos 90" (Rio de Janeiro: IPEA-DIPES, 1998), Mimeograph...
...In a press conference, Bedoya read an unsigned communiqu6 from the AUC, calling the liberation of the hostages a gesture attesting to the paramilitary group's "firm desire for peace and to contribute to seeking a negotiated solution to Colombia's internal conflict...
...Until 1992, Garifunas held titles of occupation to their land, meaning they had the right to use but not own government land...
...A report on Colombia's Caracol television that a Peruvian air force plane with U.S...
...Pinochet is awaiting the Law Lords' decision in a rented house in Surrey, a county southeast of London...
...Colombia's paramilitary groups, which have worked with the tacit or open support of the military, have frequently accused human rights groups of supporting leftist insurgents, claims that are rarely backed up with any evidence...
...Phoenix lawyer Stephen Montoya is representing Hispanic plaintiffs in a $35 million class action civilrights lawsuit against the city of Chandler, now pending in U.S...
...The bodies of four of the youths turned up a few days later in an isolated suburb of Guatemala City...
...Ann Birch Garifuna Communities Stand to Lose Lands TEGUCIGALPA-The ancestral lands of the Garifuna people-the Afro-Honduran, English-speaking people who inhabit the Caribbean coast of Honduras--are under attack in the wake of a post-hurricane constitutional reform which redefines traditional communal lands as private property...
...Indeed, Colombia remains one of the most dangerous countries in the world for human rights defenders...
...Some call it deber peligro--the duty to face danger for a cause...
...Unemployment is currently running at 13.4%, an improvement on last year's figures...
...Former dictator Gen...
...But many of the new jobs created under government work schemes are both temporary and very low-paid, and job insecurity remains one of the Argentines' main worries...
...After several days of waiting for him to come home, I went looking for him," she said...
...Others saw even more sinister motivations behind Fujimori's actions...
Vol. 32 • March 1999 • No. 5
